Contemporary witnesses

Edith Kraus became personally acquainted with Kestenberg in 1933, one year after his forced retirement, when he came to Prague with the first wave of immigration. There he had many friends in artistic and intellectual circles, including Max Brod and Franz Kafka. In one of the circles, he met Edith Kraus.

Kraus held Kestenberg in high esteem, and saw him as lively, intelligent and good at guiding people. Kestenberg appraised her as a highly gifted former pupil of Artur Schnabel's. They soon began to work together. They played Liszt's Concerto pathétique on Czech Radio.

She also was the pianist for the music salon that took place at Kestenberg's house. This salon was organized by Paula Seelig, a banker's wife, for the ladies of high society. While Kestenberg lectured on music history, Kraus played the musical examples. Kestenberg gave similar lectures at the Bert Brecht Club, but there played the musical illustrations himself (source: Lenka Reinerová).

On Kestenberg's piano style, Kraus says: he played very well, orchestrally, he was freer in rhythm and pedal technique and did not use much "piano". But he was somewhat out of practice during his time in Prague. Except for semi-public appearances, such as at the Bert Brecht Club, he no longer played concerts in public.

Kraus also remembers that he was immediately given an important job in the Tuscan Palace on the Hradcany, the hilltop seat of government in Prague. "Das Toskanische Palais" - and this is why Kestenberg became known around town as "Toskanini". Kestenberg devoted himself mainly to establishing the Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikerziehung (today: ISME - International Society for Music Education). Soon a central institute for music pedagogy was set up for him and he organized the Gesellschaft's first three international congresses, held in Prague, Paris and in Switzerland.

In 1938, Kestenberg immigrated with his family via Paris to Palestine. Kraus, who decided to stay, was deported only a few years later into the National Socialist "model" ghetto of Theresienstadt and began a piano career for sheer survival. After Theresienstadt was freed by the Russians in 1945 she returned to Prague and immigrated in 1949 to Israel where she soon became a member and later on a professor of piano at the Tel Aviv Music Academy. A renewed collaboration with Kestenberg did not come to pass.